People looking to adopt a new pet may want to head to their local animal shelter to help prevent overcrowding issues.
A number of local shelters are fighting against some capacity issues as they attempt to care for animals in need. Service agencies in Stanislaus County are experiencing a high number of intakes, while other service agencies in Solano County are attempting to stay ahead of incoming capacity issues.
1. Stanislaus County Animal Shelter
“We’re full every day,” said Stanislaus County Executive Director of Animal Services Annette Patton.
Despite their best efforts to keep one dog per kennel, the shelter is is well beyond capacity. There are 188 dog kennels and 240 dogs as of July 13. This comes despite a recent adoption promotion from June 25 to July 3, that led to about 200 animals being moved out of the shelter. The shelter also works with rescue operations that will send animals to states like Oregon, Washington, and Montana.
“We try to keep the animals alive as long as possible, so I’d rather double up,” Patton added.
The shelter takes in about 17,000 animals a year. One of the reasons for the high yearly intake is the lack of spaying and neutering in the county. According to Patton, more than 75 percent of animals that they took were not spayed or neutered.
Patton suggests that someone looking for a new pet visit a shelter, but take lifestyle into consideration.
“Don’t become that whirlwind adoption. I want you to understand that when you’re going to adopt, it changes your life.”
2. Turlock Animal Shelter
“We are probably at double our capacity.”
Despite operating on a smaller scale than the county shelter, Turlock’s animal shelter is still overcrowded. According to Animal Services Supervisor Glenna Jackson, the shelter has 32 kennels and about 70 dogs in the shelter. The shelter has turned to social media to help reunite lost animals with their owners and they also work with rescue operations from areas like Idaho and Montana.
The overcrowding reached a point where the shelter stopped accepting owner surrenders.
“We’re not taking owner surrenders simply because of the amount of strays that we brought in,” said Jackson.
Jackson encourages people to adopt from a shelter and to keep microchip information up to date, ensure the pet wears a license, and keep the veterinarian and shelter up to date on any changes to avoid situations where the owner becomes unreachable.
3. City of Stockton Animal Shelter
Despite some pet adoptions and rescues for cats and dogs, the shelter acknowledged on Facebook that the number of animals at the shelter was still beyond capacity.
At the time of the post, the shelter had 91 cats/kittens and 170 dogs/puppies, which was beyond capacity for the shelter. The shelter called on adopters, owners, and rescues to help with the animals at their shelter.
4. Solano County Animal Shelter
Even though the Solano County Animal Shelter has some space available, they still have some concern for their “kitten season.”
“It is kitten season, so we do have a large influx of kittens here at the shelter and about 200 more kittens out to foster right now,” said Lt. Cathy Ramos. These kittens are expected to come back from foster about a month, according to Ramos.
The program has been a big help in mitigating the amount of animals in the shelter, along with working with other shelters and rescue operations.
“Without the foster, we would not have enough space, but it works out really well.”
The shelter is currently extending a promotion that saw 60 kittens get adopted in order to make room for the kittens currently in foster.
